In a message dated 97-12-23 18:31:55 EST, [log in to unmask] writes:

> So when you are up against attitudes in your current preservation battle,
>  transport yourself.  To the future.  Try to take your "opponents" with you.
>  They're really not opponents.  They're trying to do what they think is best
>  for the community too.  You just have to take them with you, try to inspire
>  them with your vision of the future.

Nice. What sort of toolbox, what sort of tools, are needed to take the
"opponent" with you?
Visualization? Demographics?

I guess you have to identify common interests. Make the exchange as human and
non-confrontational as possible? Or piss them off and get them running after
you?

Why are they not opponents? Is this a conceptual tool to make it easier to
work with them?

At what point does a belief system that we do not accept, that we consider
dangerous to life, become an opposition? When I find an intruder in my house I
do not think of him as an opponent, I simply react to eliminate the threat. It
is only later that the family develops a security plan to prevent intrusions.
Main Streets with the economy sucked out of them by the mall on the outskirts
of town... suddenly wealth is shifted to the megacorp. If the previous
activities of preservationists did not prevent the mall from being built, then
what strategies will bring back the localization of the Main Street
ecnonomies?

Vision & inspiration. The bookstores, in the business sections, are full of
books on vision, inspiration, strategy & leadership.

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